Arnold Johan Messenius

Arnold Johan Messenius (1607 – 22 December 1651) was a Swedish enfant terrible and royal historiographer who was condemned to death and executed under the reign of Queen Christina.

Arnold Johan spent much of his youth in the fortress of Kajaneborg in Arctic Finland, where his father had been imprisoned on suspicion of being a Catholic and collaborating with the king of Poland Sigismund III Vasa and the Jesuits.

When Messenius suspected that the government wanted to publish this work in its own name, he demanded freedom for his son, Arnold, who was also imprisoned, and free passage for himself to wherever he wished.

Shortly after Johannes Messenius died, the government offered his widow, Lucia Grothusen, 500 Swedish riksdaler for Scandia illustrata.

In October 1623 he was accepted at the prestigious Jesuit Collegium Hosianum in Braunsberg (Poland), where his father also had studied, but, undisciplined, he left shortly afterwards.

He was then instructed to write an official history of Sigismund and Charles IX's reign and won the generous patronage of the admiral Carl Carlsson Gyllenhielm.